What do you think of partnering with a Marketing Agency to build your SaaS?
So I've been working on a low-code SaaS builder for a while now. Started more as an experiment to see if I could build it. I ended up building the thing.
I'm trying to get good at marketing. But it's not my cup of tea.
I was wondering if partnering with an agency to market a SaaS product OR a SaaS builder OR in general other products is a good idea.
I'm in the process of partnering up with one.
Have you guys tried it? Have you guys had successes/failures to share?
Esp curious since I read how tweet hunter scaled so fast: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-tweet-hunter-became-a-million-dollar-juggernaut-a3adfbae2f
EDIT: I think I should have made this clear, I'm talking about a partnership rather than paying agencies to market for me. I'm in talks with an agency where they do the marketing, while I do the building & we split the revenue & expenses.
Hey Jay,
Probably not the answer you want to hear but defo the one you need to.
My concern (and yours too) should be that the most important part of any business is being able to market it.
Building a product doesn't produce money. Marketing a product does.
Put two founders in front of me - one who can market and one who can build, and ask me to bet on which one will build a successful business and I will bet everything on the marketer.
It's so easy to copy any product these days. Nearly every single product out there is a copy of something else. The businesses that succeed are the ones that are better at marketing than their competitors.
If you want to be sure of growing a successful business (not just now but in the future) is to learn how to market correctly (effectively and ethically).
Best
Chris
Chris, Thank you.
It is important to learn how to market a product. But I think, just like it is difficult for non-devs to learn to code, it is difficult for non-marketers to learn how to sell just by doing it themselves.
But I get your point. And having read through all the comments & from my own experience struggling with marketing, I think it'd be better to try out this partnership while trying to be active with the marketing to learn all I can.
This is an app I'm building with my own low-code builder, so
I really appreciate you taking the time to post a detailed reply.
All the best with thebluntmethod.com
Hey Jay,
You're welcome.
I'll share a little secret with you though that I've picked up in the last nearly 20 years that most marketers won't admit.
Marketing can look very complicated but it is very simply doing two things:
Don't get suckered into the rabbit hole of tactics and tracking and analytics etc. etc. that makes marketers look smart and intelligent.
The only important thing is to ensure that you are saying the right thing and just keep on saying it (even in the face of radio silence and no feedback).
People might not listen to you for months (or longer) but, thanks to repetition, they'll eventually start paying attention.
Advertisers wrote about this in the beginning of the 19th century and it's still true (and always will be) because it's how the human mind works. It's a cognitive bias.
If you need help creating the right message, you know where I am :-)
Good luck! And I look forward to reading about your success story on here :-)
Thank you Chris,
I'll keep that in mind. Let me start working with these guys.
I will have a post on the outcome. I hope it is a success post. Either way, it's a lesson learned.
Agencies are so expensive! We're a bootstrapped startup (https://www.datalogz.io/) and honestly, we as founders did a lot of our own sales and marketing at first. We also had advisors/consultants come in. If you don't have to give up a huge revenue split, it sounds like it could be a solid deal - do you at your stage need an entire company though?
Hi Jay,
I own a marketing agency. I have to say I agree with most of what people are saying on this thread.
Finding the right person OR team who's paid for performance is the best bet, in my opinion.
Key factors:
Business growth experience - many successful business people are incredible at sales and marketing, even though their not marketers, per se
Skin in the game
Not trying to suck you dry for personal advantage - they're really excited about your product and are willing to work hard to see it grow
Long-term commitment
Questions to ask:
What marketing channels do you really specialize in?
Which industries do you excel in?
Can I see some case studies?
Red flags:
*No case studies
*Just wanting a monthly payment without tangible end results for you (like new customers)
*No measurable results like tracking their work
Just my 2 cents, but hopefully that helps. Good luck!
David. I'll keep that in mind. I'll have an update soon enough on the lessons I've learned. Thank you!
Give a try on Growth hacks before you consider this option. wishing you success!
I think it's a great idea, I'm almost complete a small boot strap product in a somewhat red oceany space, and I was already thinking along similar lines to you.
Doing Frontend, Backend, Design, , etc... is a F/T job on its own.
I was actually just thinking of going back and earning as a Dev as I can make pretty good money and then paying someone else to market it.
Another idea I would like to suggest though, is using something like Co-Founders Lab to find a partner rather than an Agency or a Freelancer.
I think it's more likely you'd find someone in a similar headspace of knowing how hard it is to build something from nothing.
If you understand the dynamics of Red ocean/Blue ocean you're ahead of 90% of ppl out there.
I agree. Dev jobs do pay and you cannot build when you don't have the resources to experiment.
My plan with these guys is to learn as I work with them. I'm not paying them. I'm splitting revenues with them. I'm treating this as more of a learning experience. I'll def make a post about what I've learned.
I've worked with several clients who have hired marketing agencies. The result has almost always been disappointing. I'd definitely suggest finding an all-star freelancer. They'll be the same price or cheaper, and probably more capable, with no silos.
I was talking about partnering with them. Unpaid. Pro-bono.
I build, they market & we split revenue.
But this gives me an idea. It would be better to partner with freelancers instead.
I completely second this - I would go talk to well rounded freelancers,
Why not an individual instead of an agency?
This isn't rare with co-founders, one of them being a "marketing/business" person and another being a tech person.
Finding an individual passionate about the same thing as you is difficult.
With agencies, at least I know they can bring business + it would be a learning experience in marketing & sales.
Honest opinion.
If you can it is always better to outsource some parts.
You can't work on code, marketing and everything at the same time.
It becomes unbearable.
You will go further and faster by outsourcing.
Agree. But paying for it might not work out.
I'm talking partnership, and someone new to marketing & sales. I think there is a lot to learn.
It's a new skill, and yeah can be overwhelming to do it all by yourself with no prior experience.
Marketing should be a core competency, it's dangerous to totally outsource it because the agency's goal is different than your. Marketing needs total attention, not a part-time effort.
If you like to try I suggest to find a partner at your size, not bigger and not smaller, because you should fit their ideal customer to be served well.
Sorry, I think my post wasn't clear enough. I was talking about partnership & not hiring them.
It would be great if one could be as good at marketing as some of the successful founders here, but not everyone gets it.
I mean how many of us here build & launch vs those who succeed. I know other factors come into play but a lot of developers find it difficult to market what they've built or even validate their ideas (which is a kind of marketing).
I'm trying to use this partnership as a way to learn. An experiment.
Hello Jay, how are you!
I think it is a nice question, I really would love to hear other opinions.
First of all, I think you are right to delegate the marketing part instead of wasting time learning it, as you don't like it and as you already have a giant responsibility: creating and maintaining the product . But I think that you may have better options when come to partnering instead of a marketing agency.
The marketing agency may be capable of doing a lot of "marketing stuff", but are they inside the niche of your software? Does your SAAS address a pain of marketing agencies? If you answer is NO, then I really think you have better options when come to partnering.
For illustration purpose I gonna tell you about my case:
Since the beginning of my SAAS development I had my business partner with me, he worked on the niche of the product for about 10 years, he knew the pains, the problems, some solutions to address all of this (but didnt know how to code 👩💻🙂). He doesnt have an audience, but he has practice and real customers/situations where he could test the product on real life, this is really important because you can know how if feels to use it and better address all the problems. So if I had to choose a partner he would be this of this kind (who have experience on the product niche). it may sounds a little cliche but this kind of partner will have a lot more passion for the business, not only the marketing thing, but the whole process and I really believe that you can make more progress with a business partner than with a marketing agency
Now, how did we make the “marketing stuff” ? We didn’t. When the product was ready to be used in real life by other customers we started to contact the potential ones. But not just this, we contacted potential customers who had an audience (youtube, instagram, etc….digital creators/ "influencers " on the product niche), created courses on the niche, etc. When you create content you love to be the first one to use something (early adopters), to test something and to create content about this, to be the first one to "bring the news".
We also started an affiliate program, so customers could refer new customers and receive for this (discount in the monthly payment).
Just with these 2 actions we built a powerful “word of mouth marketing”. We didnt spend anything on marketing and receive weekly some new interested customers.
When would I consider this marketing agency relationship ? If and only if:
1.My SAAS would address a pain of marketing agencies.
OR
2.I really don't have any other options, I tried for a long time to find a partner who was in the product's niche (with or without an audience). BUT, if this is the case maybe you need to rethink about the product idea, the market need of this solution, etc
OR
3.this marketing agency partnership presents opportunities that I don’t know because of the lack of information 😅
Thats all, hope to help.
And thats just my case and my opinion, would love to hear from other founders.
Wow, that's a detailed, insightful reply. Thank you so much.
Like you say I have tried to find partners for my product but have failed to find someone.
I tried out doing some marketing myself, but I'm terrible at it and not consistent enough. I am still trying.
One of the main reasons why I wanted to do this was I wanted to try out an alternative.
To see if there is a different path from what founders usually take.
I think Point 3 is the most relevant here. I don't have enough information. I know that the agency is capable & interested in building this, but like you said they aren't operating in my niche and that could be a problem.
Anyways, I will consider this an experiment and write a detailed post about building a SaaS with a marketing agency partner :)
Thank you.
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Thank you, Tiago, good work on WBE btw. I'll try reaching out. But I'm talking about a partnership and not a paid service.